Kevin Allen continues his fascinating interview with Kyriakos C. Markides, author of The Mountain of Silence, Gifts of the Desert, and many more. Is it possible that Part Two could be better than Part One? You be the judge!

Fr. Apostolos speaks about the feast of the Transfiguration and the New Life in Jesus Christ which transforms us into the glorified Image of God He revealed on Mount Tabor.

Fr. Emmanuel Kahn gives the sermon in celebration of the Translation of the Relics of St. John Chrysostom in 434.

Bobby Maddex interviews Vlad Morosan, the director of the professional choral group Archangel Voices, about an upcoming concert at Holy Trinity Orthodox Church in Danbury Connecticut. The event will take place on June 8, 2013, at 7:30 PM, and the cost is $45 per ticket ($20 for students), which includes a wine and cheese reception.

Bobby Maddex interviews Chad Marine, the singer songwriter behind the group The Wonderful Mountain, which plays music characterized as Byzanfolk—a style that combines the traditions and teachings of the Orthodox Church with popular music.

Bobby Maddex interviews John McKinney, the author of Hiking the Holy Mountain: Tales of Monks and Miracles on the Trails of Mount Athos, Greece.

Bobby Maddex interviews Andrei Oprescu, the director of the new documentary People of the Holy Mountain, a film featuring the Orthodox monks of Mt. Athos.

Join Bobby Maddex, Jerry Minetos, and Samuel Heble as they journey to Greece to experience firsthand the monasteries, sketes, and churches of both Thessaloniki and Mount Athos. In partnership with Orthodox Tours, the three travelers—all employees of Ancient Faith Ministries—present listeners with the highs and lows of pilgrimage, as well as what they should expect on their own potential journeys to Greece and the Holy Mountain. For more information about Orthodox Tours, please visit orthodoxtours.com.

Join Bobby Maddex, Jerry Minetos, and Samuel Heble as they journey to Greece to experience firsthand the monasteries, sketes, and churches of both Thessaloniki and Mount Athos. In partnership with Orthodox Tours, the three travelers—all employees of Ancient Faith Ministries—present listeners with the highs and lows of pilgrimage, as well as what they should expect on their own potential journeys to Greece and the Holy Mountain. For more information about Orthodox Tours, please visit orthodoxtours.com.

Fr. Pat preaches from 1 Kings 18:42-19:18, about Elijah, who, after his fearless encounter with the priests of Baal, is now isolated and filled with self-pity.

Fr. Pat preaches on the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness as told in the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 4.

How great is your faith? Smaller than a poppy seed? Then bring the problem to The Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ and He and you can move all sorts of mountains together. Matthew 17: 14-23 The healing of the moon-stuck boy.

You could also buy equipment to extend it into your house. (proposal)

The firefighters, police officers and a nurse are being honoured with a new award for those who died in the line of duty.

Cox delivered a speech about the earth and the forces of nature in the context of sustainability issues.

Patient Doreen Adams of Aberdeen says she is grateful for the benefits of the new brain surgery.

Bryan Webber says dentists are trained on the signs of mouth cancer, but people must seek help early.

Former Welsh international and commentator Dave Edwards joins Chris Wise and Andy Moon

Portsmouth manager John Mousinho says Saturday's win over Preston was much needed going into the international break.

Adam Randell is a 'future captain' at Plymouth Argyle according to head coach Wayne Rooney.

Former Shrewsbury School boy Sandy Irvine went missing climbing Everest 100 years ago.

A mum says she felt like a nuisance because she had to repeatedly try to find out what was wrong.

There are almost 400 active cases of reported damp or mould in social housing across Wiltshire.

Tenants say they have experienced mould, mushrooms growing through carpets and water leaks.

Further to yesterday's post, this is a list of thoughts prompted by a request from Linkmachinego on the topic of being an anonymous writer and blogger. Maybe not exactly a how-to (since the outcome is not guaranteed) as a post on things I did, things I should have done, and things I learned.

It's not up to me to decide if you "deserve" to be anonymous. My feeling is, if you're starting out as a writer and do not yet feel comfortable writing under your own name, that is your business and not mine. I also think sex workers should consider starting from a position of anonymity and decide later if they want to be out, please don't be naive. Statistics I made up right now show 99 out of 100 people who claim 'if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear' are talking out of their arses.

The items in the list fall into three general categories: internet-based, legal and real-world tips, and interpersonal. Many straddle more than one of these categories. All three are important.

This is written for a general audience because most people who blog now do not have extensive technical knowledge, they just want to write and be read. That's a good thing by the way. If you already know all of this, then great, but many people won't. Don't be sneery about their lack of prior knowledge. Bringing everyone up to speed on the technology is not the goal: clear steps you can use to help protect your identity from being discovered are.

Disclaimer: I'm no longer anonymous so these steps are clearly not airtight. Also there are other sources of information on the Web, some of which are more comprehensive and more current than my advice. I accept no responsibility for any outcome of following this advice. Please don't use it to do illegal or highly sensitive things. Also please don't use pseudonyms to be a dick.

This is also a work in progress. As I remember things or particular details, I'll amend this post. If you have suggestions of things that should be added, let me know.

1. Don't use Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail et al. for your mail.

You will need an email address to do things like register for blog accounts, Facebook, Twitter, and more. This email will have to be something entirely separate from your "real" email addresses. There are a lot of free options out there, but be aware that sending an email from many of them also sends information in the headers that could help identify you.

When I started blogging, I set up an email address for the blog with Hotmail. Don't do this. Someone quickly pointed out the headers revealed where I worked (a very large place with lots of people and even more computers, but still more information than I was comfortable with). They suggested I use Hushmail instead, which I still use. Hushmail has a free option (though the inbox allocation is modest), strips out headers, and worked for me.

A caveat with this: if you are, say, a sex worker working in a place where that is not legal and using Hushmail, you could be vulnerable to them handing over your details to a third party investigating crimes. If you're handling information some governments might consider embarrassing or sensitive, same. Google some alternatives: you're looking for something secure and encrypted.

There are a few common-sense tips you can follow to make it even safer. If you have to bring people you know in real life in on the secret, don't use this email address for communicating with them even if only about matters related to your secret (and don't use your existing addresses for that either). Example: I have one address for press and general interactions, one for things related to my accountant and money, and one for communicating with my agent, publisher, and solicitor. I've also closed and opened new accounts over the years when it seems "too many" people are getting hold of a particular address. Use different passwords for each, don't make these passwords related to your personal information, and so on.

I unwisely left the Hotmail address going, and while I did not use it to send mail, I continued to read things that arrived there. That led to this failed attempt by the Sunday Times to out me. It was an easily dodged attempt but something I would have preferred to avoid.

People can and do register internet domains while staying anonymous but I never did. Some people registered domains for me (people I didn't know in person). This led to a couple of instances of them receiving harassment when the press suspected they were me. In particular Ian Shircore got a bit of unwanted attention this way.

Because all I was ever doing was a straight-up blog, not having a registered domain that I had control over was fine. Your needs may be different. I am not a good source for advice on how to do that. But just in case you might be thinking "who would bother looking there?" read about how faux escort Alexa DiCarlo was unmasked. This is what happens when you don't cover your tracks.

2. Don't use a home internet connection, work internet connection, etc.

Email won't be the only way you might want to communicate with people. You may also want to leave comments on other blogs and so forth. Doing this and other ways of using the Web potentially exposes your IP address, which could be unique and be used to locate you.

Even if you don't leave comments just visiting a site can leave traces behind. Tim Ireland recently used a simple method to confirm his suspicion of who the "Tabloid Troll" twitter account belonged to. By comparing the IP address of someone who clicked on to a link going to the Bloggerheads site with the IP address of an email Dennis Rice sent, a link was made. If you go to the trouble of not using your own connection, also make sure you're not using the same connection for different identities just minutes apart. Don't mix the streams.

The timing of everything as it happened was key to why the papers did not immediately find out who I was. The old blog started in 2003, when most press still had to explain to their audience what a blog actually was. It took a while for people to notice the writing, so the mistakes I made early on (blogging from home and work, using Hotmail) had long been corrected by the time the press became interested.

Today, no writer who aims to stay anonymous should ever assume a grace period like that. It also helped that once the press did become interested, they were so convinced not only that Belle was not really a hooker but also that she was one of their own - a previously published author or even journalist - that they never looked in the right place. If they'd just gone to a London blogmeet and asked a few questions about who had pissed off a lot of people and was fairly promiscuous, they'd have had a plausible shortlist in minutes.

After I moved from Kilburn to Putney, I was no longer using a home internet connection - something I should have done right from the beginning. I started to use internet cafes for posting and other activities as Belle. This offers some security... but be wary of using these places too often if there is a reason to think someone is actively looking for you. It's not perfect.

Also be wary if you are using a laptop or other machine provided by your workplace, or use your own laptop to log in to work servers ("work remotely"). I've not been in that situation and am not in any way an expert on VPNs, but you may want to start reading about it here and do some googling for starters. As a general principle, it's probably wise not to do anything on a work laptop that could get you fired, and don't do anything that could get you fired while also connected to work remotely on your own machine.

3. There is software available that can mask your IP address. There are helpful add-ons that can block tracking software.

I didn't use this when I was anonymous, but if I was starting as an anonymous blogger now, I would download Tor and browse the Web and check email through their tools.

If you do use Tor or other software to mask your IP address, don't then go on tweeting about where your IP address is coming from today! I've seen people do this. Discretion fail.

I also use Ghostery now to block certain tracking scripts from web pages. You will want to look into something similar. Also useful are Adblocker, pop-up blockers, things like that. They are simple to download and use and you might like to use them anyway even if you're not an anonymous blogger. A lot of sites track your movements and you clearly don't want that.

4. Take the usual at-home precautions.

Is your computer password-protected with a password only you know? Do you clear your browser history regularly? Use different passwords for different accounts? Threats to anonymity can come from people close to you. Log out of your blog and email accounts when you're finished using them, every time. Have a secure and remote backup of your writing. Buy a shredder and use it. Standard stuff.

Another thing I would do is install a keystroke logger on your own machine. By doing this I found out in 2004 that someone close to me was spying on me when they were left alone with my computer. In retrospect what I did about it was not the right approach. See also item 7.

5. Be careful what you post.

Are you posting photos? Exif data can tell people, among other things, where and when a picture was taken, what it was taken with, and more. I never had call to use it because I never posted photos or sound, but am told there are loads of tools that can wipe this Exif data from your pictures (here's one).

The content of what you post can be a giveaway as well. Are you linking to people you know in real life? Are you making in-jokes or references to things only a small group of people will know about? Don't do that.

If possible, cover your tracks. Do you have a previous blog under a known name? Are you a contributor to forums where your preferred content and writing style are well-known? Can you edit or delete these things? Good, do that.

Personally, I did not delete everything. Partly this was because the world of British weblogging was so small at the time - a few hundred popular users, maybe a couple thousand people blogging tops? - that I thought the sudden disappearance of my old blog coinciding with the appearance of an unrelated new one might be too much of a coincidence. But I did let the old site go quiet for a bit before deleting it, and edited archived entries.

Keep in mind however that The Wayback Machine means everything you have written on the web that has been indexed still exists. And it's searchable. Someone who already has half an idea where to start looking for you won't have too much trouble finding your writing history. (UPDATE: someone alerted me that it's possible to get your own sites off Wayback by altering the robots.txt file - and even prevent them appearing there in the first place - and to make a formal request for removal using reasons listed here. This does not seem to apply to sites you personally have no control over unless copyright issues are involved.) If you can put one more step between them and you... do it.

6. Resist temptation to let too many people in.

If your writing goes well, people may want to meet you. They could want to buy you drinks, give you free tickets to an opening. Don't say yes. While most people are honest in their intentions, some are not. And even the ones who are may not have taken the security you have to keep your details safe. Remember, no one is as interested in protecting your anonymity as you will be.

Friends and family were almost all unaware of my secret - both the sex work and the writing. Even my best friend (A4 from the books) didn't know. 

I met very few people "as" Belle. There were some who had to meet me: agent, accountant, editor. I never went to the Orion offices until after my identity became known. I met Billie Piper, Lucy Prebble, and a couple of writers during the pre-production of Secret Diary at someone's house, but met almost no one else involved with the show. Paul Duane and Avril MacRory met me and were absolutely discreet. I went to the agent's office a few times but never made an appointment as Belle or in my real name. Most of the staff there had no idea who I was. Of these people who did meet me almost none knew my real name, where I lived, where I was from, my occupation. Only one (the accountant) knew all of that - explained below under point 9. And if I could have gotten away with him never seeing a copy of my passport, I damn well would have done.

The idea was that if people don't know anything they can't inadvertently give it away. I know that all of the people listed above were absolutely trustworthy. I still didn't tell them anything a journalist would have considered useful.

When I started blogging someone once commented that my blog was a "missed opportunity" because it didn't link to an agency website or any way of booking my services. Well, duh. I didn't want clients to meet me through the blog! If you are a sex worker who wants to preserve a level of pseudonymity and link your public profile to your work, Amanda Brooks has the advice you need. Not me.

Other sources like JJ Luna write about how to do things like get and use credit cards not tied to your name and address. I've heard Entropay offer 'virtual' credit cards that are not tied to your credit history, although they can't be used with any system that requires address verification. This could be useful even for people who are not involved in sex work.

Resisting temptation sometimes means turning down something you'd really like to do. The short-term gain of giving up details for a writing prize or some immediate work may not be worth the long-term loss of privacy. I heard about one formerly anonymous blogger who was outed after giving their full name and address to a journalist who asked for it when they entered a competition. File under: how not to stay anonymous.

7. Trust your intuition.

I have to be careful what I say here. In short, my identity became known to a tabloid paper and someone whom I had good reason not to trust (see item 4) gave them a lot of information about me.

When your intuition tells you not to trust someone, LISTEN TO IT. The best security in the world fails if someone props open a door, leaves a letter on the table, or mentally overrides the concern that someone who betrayed you before could do so again. People you don't trust should be ejected from your life firmly and without compromise. A "let them down easy" approach only prolongs any revenge they might carry out and probably makes it worse. The irony is that as a call girl I relied on intuition and having strong personal boundaries all the time... but failed to carry that ability over into my private life. If there is one thing in my life I regret, the failure to act on my intuition is it.

As an aside if you have not read The Gift of Fear already, get it and read it.

See also point 9: if and when you need people to help you keep the secret don't make it people already involved in your private life. Relationships can cloud good judgement in business decisions.

There is a very droll saying "Two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead." It's not wrong. I know, I know. Paranoid. Hard not to be when journos a few years later are digging through the rubbish of folks who met you exactly once when you were sixteen. Them's the breaks.

8. Consider the consequences of success.

If you find yourself being offered book deals or similar, think it through. Simply by publishing anonymously you will become a target. Some people assume all anonymous writers "want" to be found, and the media in particular will jump through some very interesting hurdles to "prove" anything they write about you is in the public interest.

In particular, if you are a sex worker, and especially if you are a sex worker who is visible/bookable through your site, please give careful consideration to moving out of that sphere. Even where sex for money is legal it is still a very stigmatised activity. There are a number of people who do not seem to have realised this, and the loss of a career when they left the "sex-pos" bubble was probably something of a shock. I'm not saying don't do it - but please think long and hard about the potential this has to change your life and whether you are fully prepared to be identified this way forever. For every Diablo Cody there are probably dozens of Melissa Petros. For every Melissa Petro there are probably hundreds more people with a sex industry past who get quietly fired and we don't ever hear from them.

If I knew going in to the first book deal what would happen, I probably would have said no. I'm glad I didn't by the way - but realistically, my life was stressful enough at that point and I did not fully understand what publishing would add to that. Not many bloggers had mainstream books at that point (arguably none in the UK) so I didn't have anyone else's experience to rely on. I really had no idea about what was going to happen. The things people wrote about me then were mainly untrue and usually horrendous. Not a lot has changed even now. I'd be lying if I said that didn't have an emotional effect.

Writing anonymously and being outed has happened often enough that people going into it should consider the consequences. I'm not saying don't do it if you risk something, but be honest with yourself about the worst possible outcome and whether you would be okay with that.

9.  Enlist professional help to get paid and sign contracts.

Having decided to write a book, I needed an agent. The irony of being anonymous was that while I let as few people in on it as possible, at some point I was going to have to take a leap of faith and let in more. Mil Millington emailed me to recommend Patrick Walsh, saying he was one of the few people in London who can be trusted. Mil was right.

Patrick put me on to my accountant (who had experience of clients with, shall we say, unusual sources of income). From there we cooked up a plan so that contracts could be signed without my name ever gracing a piece of paper. Asking someone to keep a secret when there's a paper trail sounds like it should be possible but rarely is. Don't kid yourself, there is no such thing as a unbreakable confidentiality agreement. Asking journalists and reviewers to sign one about your book is like waving a red rag to a bull. What we needed was a few buffers between me and the press.

With Patrick and Michael acting as directors, a company was set up - Bizrealm. I was not on the paperwork as a director so my name never went on file with Companies House. Rather, with the others acting as directors, signing necessary paperwork, etc., Patrick held a share in trust for me off of which dividends were drawn and this is how I got paid. I may have got some of these details wrong, by the way - keep in mind, I don't deal with Bizrealm's day-to-day at all.

There are drawbacks to doing things this way: you pay for someone's time, in this case the accountant, to create and administer the company. You can not avoid tax and lots of it. (Granted, drawing dividends is more tax-efficient, but still.) You have to trust a couple of people ABSOLUTELY. I'd underline this a thousand times if I could. Michael for instance is the one person who always knew, and continues to know, everything about my financial and personal affairs. Even Patrick doesn't know everything.

There are benefits though, as well. Because the money stays mainly in the company and is not paid to me, it gets eked out over time, making tax bills manageable, investment more constant, and keeping me from the temptation to go mad and spend it.

I can't stress enough that you might trust your friends and family to the ends of the earth, but they should not be the people who do this for you. Firstly, because they can be traced to you (they know you in a non-professional way). Secondly, because this is a very stressful setup and you need the people handling it to be on the ball. As great as friends and family are that is probably not the kind of stress you want to add to your relationship. I have heard far too many stories of sex workers and others being betrayed by ex-partners who knew the details of their business dealings to ever think that's a good idea.

So how do you know you can trust these people? We've all heard stories of musicians and other artists getting ripped off by management, right? All I can say is instinct. It would not have been in Patrick's interest to grass me, since as my agent he took a portion of my earnings anyway, and therefore had financial as well as personal interest in protecting that. If he betrayed me he would also have suffered a loss of reputation that potentially outweighed any gain. Also, as most people who know him will agree, he's a really nice and sane human being. Same with Michael.

If this setup sounds weirdly paranoid, let me assure you that journalists absolutely did go to Michael's office and ask to see the Bizrealm paperwork, and Patrick absolutely did have people going through his bins, trying to infiltrate his office as interns, and so on. Without the protection of being a silent partner in the company those attempts to uncover me might have worked.

I communicate with some writers and would-be writers who do not seem to have agents. If you are serious about writing, and if you are serious about staying anonymous, get an agent. Shop around, follow your instinct, and make sure it's someone you can trust. Don't be afraid to dump an agent, lawyer, or anyone else if you don't trust them utterly. They're professionals and shouldn't take it personally.

10. Don't break the (tax) law.

Journalists being interested in your identity is one thing. What you really don't want is the police or worse, the tax man, after you. Pay your taxes and try not to break the law if it can be helped. If you're a sex worker blogging about it, get an accountant who has worked with sex workers before - this is applicable even if you live somewhere sex work is not strictly legal. Remember, Al Capone went down for tax evasion. Don't be like Al. If you are a non-sex-work blogger who is earning money from clickthroughs and affiliates on your site, declare this income.

In summer 2010 the HMRC started a serious fraud investigation of me. It has been almost two years and is only just wrapping up, with the Revenue finally satisfied that not only did I declare (and possibly overdeclare) my income as a call girl, but that there were no other sources of income hidden from them. They have turned my life and financial history upside down to discover next to nothing new about me. This has been an expensive and tedious process. I can't even imagine what it would have been like had I not filed the relevant forms, paid the appropriate taxes, and most of all had an accountant to deal with them!

Bottom line, you may be smart - I'm pretty good with numbers myself - but people whose job it is to know about tax law, negotiating contracts, and so on will be better at that than you are. Let them do it. They are worth every penny.

11. Do interviews with care.

Early interviews were all conducted one of two ways: over email (encrypted) or over an IRC chatroom from an anonymising server (I used xs4all). This was not ideal from their point of view, and I had to coach a lot of people in IRC which most of them had never heard of. But again, it's worth it, since no one in the press will be as interested in protecting your identity as you are. I hope it goes without saying, don't give out your phone number.

12. Know when les jeux sont faits.

In November 2009 - 6 years after I first started blogging anonymously - my identity was revealed.

As has been documented elsewhere, I had a few heads-ups that something was coming, that it was not going to be nice, and that it was not going to go away. We did what we could to put off the inevitable but it became clear I only had one of two choices: let the Mail on Sunday have first crack at running their sordid little tales, or pre-empt them.

While going to the Sunday Times - the same paper that had forcibly outed Zoe Margolis a few years earlier, tried to get my details through that old Hotmail address, and incorrectly fingered Sarah Champion as me - was perhaps not the most sensitive choice, it was for me the right move. Patrick recommended that we contact an interviewer who had not been a Belle-believer: if things were going to be hard, best get that out of the way up front.



So that is that. It's a bit odd how quickly things have changed. When I started blogging I little imagined I would be writing books, much less something like this. Being a kind of elder statesman of blogging (or cantankerous old grump if you prefer) is not an entirely comfortable position and one that is still new to me. But it is also interesting to note how little has changed: things that worked in the early 2000s have value today. The field expanded rapidly but the technology has not yet changed all that much.

As before, these ideas do not constitute a foolproof way to protect your identity. All writers - whether writing under their own names or not - should be aware of the risks they may incur by hitting 'publish'. I hope this post at least goes some way to making people think about how they might be identified, and starts them on a path of taking necessary (and in many cases straightforward) precautions, should they choose to be anonymous.

Cette semaine, le Président Emmanel Macron est monté en première ligne pour tenter de désamorcer ce malaise qui peut mettre en péril la suite de son quinquennat. A en juger par les dernières enquêtes, cette intervention semble avoir fait long feu. Le...

Aim/Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to illuminate the learning that happens in assuming a supervisee’s role during the postgraduate study. Background: The facilitators and barriers students encountered while pursuing postgraduate studies, strategies to achieve success in postgraduate studies, and how to decrease attrition rates of students, have been sufficiently explored in literature. However, there is little written about the personal and professional impact on students when they are being supervised to complete their postgraduate studies. Methodology: Autoethnographic method of deep reflection was used to examine the learning that transpired from the supervisee’s perspective. Two lecturers (a Senior Lecturer in Nursing and an Aboriginal Tutor) focused on their postgraduate journeys as supervisees, respectively, with over 30 years of study experience between them, in Australia and abroad. Contribution: Future postgraduate students, researchers, would-be supervisors and experienced supervisors could learn from the reflections of the authors’ postgraduate experiences. Findings: Four themes surfaced, and these were Eureka moments, Critical friend(s), Supervisory relationship, and Transformative learning. The authors highlighted the significance of a supervisory relationship which is key to negotiating the journey with the supervisor. Essential for these students also were insights on finding the path as well as the destination and the transformative aspects that happened as a necessary part of the journey. Conclusion. The postgraduate journey has taught them many lessons, the most profound of which was the change in perspective and attitude in the process of being and becoming. Personal and professional transformative learning did occur. At its deepest level, the authors’ reflections resulted in self-actualization and a rediscovery of their more authentic selves. Recommendations for Practitioners: This article highlights the importance of the supervisory relationship that must be negotiated to ensure the success of the candidate. Reflections of the transformation are recommended to support the students further. Recommendation for Researchers: Quality supervision can make a significant influence on the progress of students. Further research on the supervisory relationship is recommended. Impact on Society: The support in terms of supervision to ensure postgraduate students’ success is essential. Postgraduate students contribute to the human, social, professional, intellectual, and economic capital of universities and nations globally. Future Research: Further reflections of the transformative learning will advance the understanding of the personal and professional changes that occur with postgraduate supervision.

Aim/Purpose: In this research, we examined the influence of the information system (IS) quality dimensions proposed by Wixom and Todd on reading satisfaction of online newspaper readers in Bangladesh, especially the readers’ intention to revisit and recommendations through electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). Background: We identified the top 50 most visited websites, of which 13 were online newspapers, although their ranking among Bangladesh online newspapers varies from month to month. The literature illustrates that, despite the wide availability of online news portals and the fluctuations in frequency of visits, little is known about the factors that affect the satisfaction, word-of-mouth, and frequency of visits of readers. An understanding of reader satisfaction will help to gain richer insights into the phenomenon of readers’ intention to revisit and recommendation by eWOM. Stakeholders of online newspapers can then focus on those factors to increase visits to their websites, which will help them attract online advertisements from different organisations. Methodology: Data were collected using a structured questionnaire, from 217 people who responded to the survey. We used SmartPLS 3 to analyze the data collected, as it is based on second-generation analysis, which in turn is based on structural equation modeling (SEM). Contribution: This research explores the impacts of technological dimensions on readers’ satisfaction, as most of the previous research has focused on cultural or social dimensions. Findings: The results supported all of the hypothesized relationships between technological dimensions and reader satisfaction with online newspapers, except for one. The first, information, was predicted with accuracy and completeness, while the second object-based belief, system quality, was predicted by its accessibility, flexibility, reliability, and timeliness. Overall, quality factors influencing readers’ satisfaction were shown to lead to word-of-mouth revisit intentions. Our proposed model was empirically tested and has contributed to a nascent body of knowledge about readers’ revisit intentions and eWOM recommendations regarding online newspapers. It was also shown that strong satisfaction leads to higher revisit intention and eWOM. Recommendations for Practitioners: To keep the users satisfied, online newspapers need to focus on improving information quality (IQ) and system quality (SQ). If they do this well, they will be rewarded with higher revisit intention and recommendations by eWOM. Recommendation for Researchers: This study extends Oh’s customer loyalty model by integrating the Wixom-Todd model. This study reinforces an alternative rationale of the construct satisfaction. Future Research: We ignored negative stimulus like technostress, which can have an impact on satisfaction. In future, we will test the relationship between technostress and its impact on online newspaper reading.

Aim/Purpose: This study investigates the relationship between Electronic Word-of-Mouth (EWOM), Information Adoption, and the stock investment of Vietnamese investors. Background: Misinformation spreads online, and a lack of strong information analysis skills can lead Vietnamese investors to make poor stock choices. By understanding how online conversations and information processing influence investment decisions, this research can help investors avoid these pitfalls. Methodology: This study applies Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) to investigate how non-professional investors react to online information and which information factors influence their investment decisions. The final sample includes 512 investors from 18 to 65 years old from various professional backgrounds (including finance, technology, education, etc.). We conducted a combined online and offline survey using a convenience sampling method from August to November 2023. Contribution: This study contributes to the growing literature on Electronic Word-of-Mouth (EWOM) and its impact on investment decisions. While prior research has explored EWOM in various contexts, we focus on Vietnamese investors, which can offer valuable insights into its role within a developing nation’s stock market. Investors, particularly those who are new or less experienced, are often susceptible to the influence of EWOM. By examining EWOM’s influence in Vietnam, this study sheds light on a crucial factor impacting investment behavior in this emerging market. Findings: The results show that EWOM has a moderate impact on the Information Adoption and investment decisions of Vietnamese stock investors. Information Quality (QL) is the factor that has the strongest impact on Information Adoption (IA), followed by Information Credibility (IC) and Attitude Towards Information (AT). Needs for Information (NI) only have a small impact on Information Adoption (IA). Finally, Information Adoption (IA) has a limited influence on investor decisions in stock investment. We also find that investors need to verify information through official sites before making investment decisions based on posts in social media groups. Recommendations for Practitioners: The findings suggest that state management and media agencies need to coordinate to improve the quality of EWOM information to protect investors and promote the healthy development of the stock market. Social media platform managers need to moderate content, remove false information, prioritize displaying authentic information, cooperate with experts, provide complete information, and personalize the experience to enhance investor trust and positive attitude. Securities companies need to provide complete, accurate, and updated information about the market and investment products. They can enhance investor trust and positive attitude by developing news channels, interacting with investors, and providing auxiliary services. Listed companies need to take the initiative to improve the quality of information disclosure and ensure clarity, comprehensibility, and regular updates. Use diverse communication channels and improve corporate governance capacity to increase investor trust and positive attitude. Investors need to seek information from reliable sources, compare information from multiple sources, and carefully check the source and author of the information. They should improve their investment knowledge and skills, consult experts, define investment goals, and build a suitable investment portfolio. Recommendation for Researchers: This study synthesized previous research on EWOM, but there is still a gap in the field of securities because each nation has its laws, regulations, and policies. The relationships between the factors in the model are not yet clear, and there is a need to develop a model with more interactive factors. The research results need to be further verified, and more research can be conducted on the influence of investor psychology, investment experience, etc. Impact on Society: This study finds that online word-of-mouth (EWOM) can influence Vietnamese investors’ stock decisions, but information quality is more important. Policymakers should regulate EWOM accuracy, fund managers should use social media to reach investors, and investors should diversify their information sources. Future Research: This study focuses solely on the stock market, while individual investors in Vietnam may engage in various other investment forms such as gold, real estate, or cryptocurrencies. Therefore, future research could expand the scope to include other investment types to gain a more comprehensive understanding of how individual investors in Vietnam utilize electronic word-of-mouth (EWOM) and adopt information in their investment decision-making process. Furthermore, while these findings may apply to other emerging markets with similar levels of financial literacy as Vietnam, they may not fully extend to countries with higher financial literacy rates. Hence, further studies could be conducted in developed countries to examine the generalizability of these findings. Finally, future research could see how EWOM’s impact changes over a longer period. Additionally, a more nuanced understanding of the information adoption process could be achieved by developing a research model with additional factors.

Aim/Purpose: Accurate detection of vacant parking spaces is crucial for autonomous parking. Deep learning, particularly Graph Neural Networks (GNNs), holds promise for addressing the challenges of diverse parking lot appearances and complex visual environments. Our GNN-based approach leverages the spatial layout of detected marking points in around-view images to learn robust feature representations that are resilient to occlusions and lighting variations. We demonstrate significant accuracy improvements on benchmark datasets compared to existing methods, showcasing the effectiveness of our GNN-based solution. Further research is needed to explore the scalability and generalizability of this approach in real-world scenarios and to consider the potential ethical implications of autonomous parking technologies. Background: GNNs offer a number of advantages over traditional parking spot detection methods. Unlike methods that treat objects as discrete entities, GNNs may leverage the inherent connections among parking markers (lines, dots) inside an image. This ability to exploit spatial connections leads to more accurate parking space detection, even in challenging scenarios with shifting illumination. Real-time applications are another area where GNNs exhibit promise, which is critical for autonomous vehicles. Their ability to intuitively understand linkages across marking sites may further simplify the process compared to traditional deep-learning approaches that need complex feature development. Furthermore, the proposed GNN model streamlines parking space recognition by potentially combining slot inference and marking point recognition in a single step. All things considered, GNNs present a viable method for obtaining stronger and more precise parking slot recognition, opening the door for autonomous car self-parking technology developments. Methodology: The proposed research introduces a novel, end-to-end trainable method for parking slot detection using bird’s-eye images and GNNs. The approach involves a two-stage process. First, a marking-point detector network is employed to identify potential parking markers, extracting features such as confidence scores and positions. After refining these detections, a marking-point encoder network extracts and embeds location and appearance information. The enhanced data is then loaded into a fully linked network, with each node representing a marker. An attentional GNN is then utilized to leverage the spatial relationships between neighbors, allowing for selective information aggregation and capturing intricate interactions. Finally, a dedicated entrance line discriminator network, trained on GNN outputs, classifies pairs of markers as potential entry lines based on learned node attributes. This multi-stage approach, evaluated on benchmark datasets, aims to achieve robust and accurate parking slot detection even in diverse and challenging environments. Contribution: The present study makes a significant contribution to the parking slot detection domain by introducing an attentional GNN-based approach that capitalizes on the spatial relationships between marking points for enhanced robustness. Additionally, the paper offers a fully trainable end-to-end model that eliminates the need for manual post-processing, thereby streamlining the process. Furthermore, the study reduces training costs by dispensing with the need for detailed annotations of marking point properties, thereby making it more accessible and cost-effective. Findings: The goal of this research is to present a unique approach to parking space recognition using GNNs and bird’s-eye photos. The study’s findings demonstrated significant improvements over earlier algorithms, with accuracy on par with the state-of-the-art DMPR-PS method. Moreover, the suggested method provides a fully trainable solution with less reliance on manually specified rules and more economical training needs. One crucial component of this approach is the GNN’s performance. By making use of the spatial correlations between marking locations, the GNN delivers greater accuracy and recall than a completely linked baseline. The GNN successfully learns discriminative features by separating paired marking points (creating parking spots) from unpaired ones, according to further analysis using cosine similarity. There are restrictions, though, especially where there are unclear markings. Successful parking slot identification in various circumstances proves the recommended method’s usefulness, with occasional failures in poor visibility conditions. Future work addresses these limitations and explores adapting the model to different image formats (e.g., side-view) and scenarios without relying on prior entry line information. An ablation study is conducted to investigate the impact of different backbone architectures on image feature extraction. The results reveal that VGG16 is optimal for balancing accuracy and real-time processing requirements. Recommendations for Practitioners: Developers of parking systems are encouraged to incorporate GNN-based techniques into their autonomous parking systems, as these methods exhibit enhanced accuracy and robustness when handling a wide range of parking scenarios. Furthermore, attention mechanisms within deep learning models can provide significant advantages for tasks that involve spatial relationships and contextual information in other vision-based applications. Recommendation for Researchers: Further research is necessary to assess the effectiveness of GNN-based methods in real-world situations. To obtain accurate results, it is important to employ large-scale datasets that include diverse lighting conditions, parking layouts, and vehicle types. Incorporating semantic information such as parking signs and lane markings into GNN models can enhance their ability to interpret and understand context. Moreover, it is crucial to address ethical concerns, including privacy, potential biases, and responsible deployment, in the development of autonomous parking technologies. Impact on Society: Optimized utilization of parking spaces can help cities manage parking resources efficiently, thereby reducing traffic congestion and fuel consumption. Automating parking processes can also enhance accessibility and provide safer and more convenient parking experiences, especially for individuals with disabilities. The development of dependable parking capabilities for autonomous vehicles can also contribute to smoother traffic flow, potentially reducing accidents and positively impacting society. Future Research: Developing and optimizing graph neural network-based models for real-time deployment in autonomous vehicles with limited resources is a critical objective. Investigating the integration of GNNs with other deep learning techniques for multi-modal parking slot detection, radar, and other sensors is essential for enhancing the understanding of the environment. Lastly, it is crucial to develop explainable AI methods to elucidate the decision-making processes of GNN models in parking slot detection, ensuring fairness, transparency, and responsible utilization of this technology.

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Privacy: Our parents were taking liberties for granted in their analog world, liberties that are not passed down to our children in the transition to digital — such as the simple right to send an anonymous letter.

Sometimes when speaking, I ask the audience how many would be okay with sites like The Pirate Bay, even if it means that artists are losing money from their operation. (Do note that this assertion is disputed: I’m asking the question on the basis of what-if the assertion is true.) Some people raise their hands, the proportion varying with audience and venue.

The copyright industry asserts that the offline laws don’t apply on the Internet when they want to sue and prosecute people sharing knowledge and culture. They’re right, but not in the way they think. They’re right that copyright law does apply online as well. But privacy laws don’t, and they should.

In the offline world, an analog letter was given a certain level of protection. This was not intended to cover just the physical letter as such, but correspondence in general; it was just that the letter was the only form of such correspondence when these liberties were drafted.

First, the letter was anonymous. It was your prerogative entirely whether you identified yourself as sender of the letter on the outside of the envelope, on the inside of the letter (so not even the postal service knew who sent it, only the recipient), or not at all.

Further, the letter was untracked in transit. The only governments tracking people’s correspondence were those we looked down on with enormous contempt.

Third, the letter was secret. The envelope would never we broken in transit.

Fourth, the carrier was never responsible for the contents, of nothing else for the simple reason they were not allowed to examine the content in the first place. But even if they could, like with a envelopeless postcard, they were never liable for executing their courier duties — this principle, the courier immunity or messenger immunity, is a principle that dates as far back as the Roman Empire.

These principles, the liberties of correspondence, should apply to offline correspondence (the letter) just as it should to online correspondence. But it doesn’t. You don’t have the right to send anything you like to anybody you like online, because it might be a copyright infringement — even though our parents had exactly this right in their offline world.

So the copyright industry is right – sending a copied drawing in a letter is a copyright infringement, and sending a copied piece of music over the net is the same kind of copyright infringement. But offline, there are checks and balances to these laws – even though it’s a copyright infringement, nobody is allowed to open the letter in transit just to see if it violates the law, because the secrecy of private correspondence is considered more important than discovering copyright infringements. This is key. This set of checks and balances has not been carried over into the digital environment.

The only time a letter is opened and prevented is when somebody is under individual and prior suspicion of a serious crime. The words “individual” and “prior” are important here — opening letters just to see if they contain a non-serious crime in progress, like copyright infringement, is simply not permitted in the slightest.

There is no reason for the offline liberties of our parents to not be carried over into the same online liberties for our children, regardless of whether that means somebody doesn’t know how to run a business anymore.

After highlighting these points, I repeat the question whether the audience would be okay with sites like The Pirate Bay, even if it means an artist is losing income. And after making these points, basically everybody raises their hand to say they would be fine with it; they would be fine with our children having the same liberty as our parents, and the checks and balances of the offline world to also apply online.

Next in the series, we’re going to look at a related topic – public anonymous announcements and the important role the city square soapbox filled in shaping liberty.

Privacy remains your own responsibility.

Privacy: The liberties of our parents are not being inherited by our children – they are being lost wholesale in the transition to digital. Today, we’ll look at the importance of posting anonymous public messages.

When I was in my teens, before the Internet (yes, really), there was something called BBSes – Bulletin Board Systems. They were digital equivalents of an analog Bulletin Board, which in turn was a glorified sheet of wood intended for posting messages to the public. In a sense, they were an anonymous equivalent of today’s webforum software, but you connected from your home computer directly to the BBS over a phone line, without connecting to the Internet first.

The analog Bulletin Boards are still in existence, of course, but mostly used for concert promotions and the occasional fringe political or religious announcement.

In the early 1990s, weird laws were coming into effect worldwide as a result of lobbying from the copyright industry: the owners of bulletin board systems could be held liable for what other people posted on them. The only way to avoid liability was to take down the post within seven days. Such liability had no analog equivalent at all; it was an outright ridiculous idea that the owner of a piece of land should be held responsible for a poster put up on a tree on that land, or even that the owner of a public piece of cardboard could be sued for the posters other people had glued up on that board.

Let’s take that again: it is extremely weird from a legal standpoint that an electronic hosting provider is in any way, shape, or form liable for the contents hosted on their platform. It has no analog equivalent whatsoever.

Sure, people could put up illegal analog posters on an analog bulletin board. That would be an illegal act. When that happened, it was the problem of law enforcement, and never of the bulletin board owner. The thought is ridiculous and has no place in the digital landscape either.

The proper digital equivalent isn’t to require logging to hand over upload IPs to law enforcement, either. An analog bulletin board owner is under no obligation whatsoever to somehow identify the people using the bulletin board, or even monitor whether it’s being used at all.

The Analog Equivalent Privacy Right for an electronic post hosting provider is for an uploader to be responsible for everything they upload for the public to see, with no liability at all for the hosting provider under any circumstance, including no requirement to log upload data to help law enforcement find an uploader. Such monitoring is not a requirement in the analog world of our parents, nor is there an analog liability for anything posted, and there is no reason to have it otherwise in the digital world of our children just because somebody doesn’t know how to run a business otherwise.

As a side note, the United States would not exist had today’s hosting liability laws in place when it formed. A lot of writing was being circulated at the time arguing for breaking with the British Crown and forming an Independent Republic; from a criminal standpoint, this was inciting and abetting high treason. This writing was commonly nailed to trees and public posts, for the public to read and make up their own minds. Imagine for a moment if the landowners where such trees happened to stand had been charged with high treason for “hosting content” — the thought is as ridiculous in the analog would, as it really is in the digital too. We just need to pull the illusion aside, that the current laws on digital hosting make any kind of sense. These laws really are as ridiculous in the digital world of our children, as they would have been in the analog world of our parents.

Privacy remains your own responsibility.

Privacy: The anonymous cash of our analog parents is fast disappearing, and in its wake comes trackable and permissioned debit cards to our children. While convenient, it’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

In the last article, we looked at how our analog parents could anonymously buy a newspaper on the street corner with some coins, and read their news of choice without anybody knowing about it. This observation extends to far more than just newspapers, of course.

This ability of our parents – the ability to conduct decentralized, secure transactions anonymously – has been all but lost in a landscape that keeps pushing card payments for convenience. The convenience of not paying upfront, with credit cards; the convenience of always paying an exact amount, with debit cards; the convenience of not needing to carry and find exact amounts with every purchase. Some could even argue that having every transaction listed on a bank statement is a convenience of accounting.

But with accounting comes tracking. With tracking comes predictability and unwanted accountability.

It’s been said that a VISA executive can predict a divorce one year ahead of the parties involved, based on changes in purchase patterns. Infamously, a Target store was targeting a high school-aged woman with maternity advertising, which at first made her father furious: but as things turned out, the young woman was indeed pregnant. Target knew, and her own father didn’t.

This is because when we’re no longer using anonymous cash, every single purchase is tracked and recorded with the express intent on using it against us — whether for influencing us to make a choice to deplete our resources (“buy more”) or for punishing us for buying something we shouldn’t have, in a wide variety of conceivable ways.

China is taking the concept one step further, as has been written here before, and in what must have been the inspiration for a Black Mirror episode, is weighting its citizens’ Obedience Scores based on whether they buy useful or lavish items — useful in the views of the regime, of course.

It’s not just the fact that transactions of our digital children are logged for later use against them, in ways our analog parents could never conceive of.

It’s also that the transactions of our digital children are permissioned. When our digital children buy a bottle of water with a debit card, a transaction clears somewhere in the background. But that also means that somebody can decide to have the transaction not clear; somebody has the right to arbitrarily decide what people get to buy and not buy, if this trend continues for our digital children. That is a horrifying thought.

Our parents were using decentralized, censorship resistant, anonymous transactions in using plain cash. There is no reason our digital children should have anything less. It’s a matter of liberty and self-determination.

Privacy remains your own responsibility.

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